Intro to Data Analysis

Agenda

Who or what is being studied?

POPULATION

All units of analysis (people, institutions, groups, etc.) in which the researcher is interested.

SAMPLE

A subset of people (or institutions, groups, etc.) selected from a population.

N refers to population size

n refers to sample size

DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS

Procedures that help us organize and describe data collected from a sample or population.

INFERENTIAL STATISTICS

Making underlying predictions or inferences about a population using observations and analyses from a sample.

Which of the following is an example of descriptive statistics?

The average age of UofT students is 21 years.
Students who study more than 10 hours a week are more likely to achieve higher grades
About 65% of U of T undergrads feels socially connected, based on a sample of 300 students.
A hypothesis test shows a significant relationship between income and education level

VARIABLES

Any factor, trait, or condition that can exist in differing amounts or types.

Nominal
A variable made up of categories that cannot be ordered

Ordinal
A variable made up of ranked categories, with no systematic or measurable numeric difference between the categories.

Interval-ratio (aka continuous)
A variable with categories that are ordered and expressed in the same units.

Dichotomous (aka binary)
A variable with only two categories.

Which of the following is an example of a nominal level of measurement?

The type of religion a person identifies with (e.g., Christianity, Islam, Judaism)
The number of children in a household
The income of a family in dollars
A ranking of provinces by marriage rate.

Which level of measurement is used when ranking neighborhoods by crime rate (e.g., low, medium, high)?